The late Jean Pierre
Dujin created a very interesting range of resin aircraft kits during his career
in the field. The one that really got my attention was the 1936 Waco ZQC-6
Custom Cabin biplane; one of the more aesthetically pleasing designs from an era
full of them. The Waco company managed to weather the Great Depression very
well, producing more civil aircraft during the 1930's than the total outputs of
many lesser manufacturers combined. Of these, some 120 airframes were C-6 Custom
Cabins with various engines, & a remarkable number of these C-6 Wacos saw
service on Edo 39-4000 floats in Canada.
The movie "Bush
Pilot" is a horrible old b&w melodrama, set in Canada & featuring
Waco ZQC-6 CF-BDP as "the light plane" in the script. The plane was
evidently leased or rented for the movie from Red Wing Orchards and Flying
Service of Whitby, Ontario. I wasn't able to sit through the whole movie, but
was able to derive several views of "the light plane" from the video
&, better yet, the factory finish for -BDP has been recorded for posterity.
Reading it, I knew I had to build this one.
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images below to see larger images
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The fly
in the ointment here is that Msr. Dujin evidently worked up the kit from g.a.
drawings by the late Mr. Björn Karlstrom. Commendable as Karlstrom's body of
work is, this was not one of his best plan sheets & Msr. Dujin reproduced
every error faithfully (the fuselage profile more closely resembles the longer,
fatter 1937 Custom Cabins, but the ailerons & horizontal tail are pure
1936...), so building a near-accurate model from the kit proved a bit of a
challenge. Along the way, being also a producer of model kits & after-market
resin bits, I ended up not only crafting several items for this project but
molding them & putting them on the market as well. The windshield
(particularly poorly done), engine, prop, control column, instrument panel &
floats on this one are all Khee-Kha items. The fuselage halves were also heavily
modified (trenches replaced by raised ribs, length adjusted, etc.) &
re-molded in resin to avoid having bronze wire tear apart the finish later, in
the event of exposure to extreme cold, something quite possible while
transporting the model in winter in Alaska, but these items aren't for sale as
they are still modified Dujin parts.
This was my first
resin kit build, but good advice came from friends on the Wings of Peace forum.
3M Acryl Red auto body filler was used where needed on resin parts, &
primary assembly was done with CA glue. Side windows were fashioned from bits of
broken CD boxes & glued in place with 7-minute epoxy to avoid fogging. Epoxy
is wonderful stuff; doesn't craze styrene, can be wiped off clean before it sets
up or easily picked off after it hardens, & makes a fine quick-&-dirty
wing or strut fillet that doesn't take hours to dry or require sanding. Since
almost all the struts on this plane had fairing cuffs, this last feature was
very important here. Fairing strips on the top of the fuselage were created by
masking with strips of clear tape & airbrushing a couple layers of primer
(grays mixed from Krylon flat white & flat black "Short Cuts"
enamels) before removing them again. The red & green paint is Krylon
"Short Cuts" Leaf Green & Red Pepper, purchased at the local Fred
Meyer store & airbrushed with lacquer thinner. It dried quickly to a hard
& durable finish, especially important for the rough handling the model
received while I was sanding the belly flat after installing the bottom wing
late in the game. A final primer coat of Krylon flat white helped brighten the
red, & the trim & code letters were laid out on frisket paper to mask
for the final green spray. The gold edging is acrylic craft paint, chosen for
the possibility of fixing errors with water & a toothpick; this worked out
better than I deserve.
Wing & float
N-struts were patterned off my own drawings, then cut out as one-piece items
from .040" styrene. All ends were drilled & wire-pinned. All rigging
was done with clear monofilament "invisible thread", available
wherever sewing supplies are found. All of the smaller items in my sample of the
kit were molded far off-center, so my tray of Waco YKS-6 parts was dipped into
for the engine, prop & so forth.
Challenging though
it was, I am very happy to add this model to the collection...& enjoyed
every month of the build. The Hasegawa kit should be out any day now...
Reference sources
for this build included:
-
"Waco; the
Versatile Cabin Series" by Brandley & Borisch, ISBN 0-9602734-2-5
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Stills from the
movie "Bush Pilot"
-
Stills from the
movie "Captains of the Clouds"
-
National Waco
Club website
-
...& more,
much more...
Lars
Opland
Click on
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